Miss Ninja
by MangoPirate
Summary: From the kink meme.  High schooler Miles Edgeworth joins an all-female beauty pageant to win Ninja Warrior tickets.  Fluffy PxE.


_De-anoning from the Kink Meme! The prompt was to write about high school aged Miles joining in a female-only beauty contest to win something he wanted really badly, losing the contest, and being comforted by Phoenix. The requester also wanted this to be at least somewhat serious. So here's my spin on it_

___Notes: I went with Ninja Warrior because it would definitely have been in existence when Miles was in high school and I freaking love Ninja Warrior.  
I know Miles and Phoenix wouldn't have been in high school together, but re: the request, it was kind of necessary to AU it up a bit.  
Also I'm sure there would normally be a swimsuit competition in something like this but I'm claiming artistic liberty on that one.  
Hope you don't mind Franziska being involved a little!_  


* * *

**Miss Ninja**

The lights pointed directly at the stage and made for a sauna-like atmosphere where all of the contestants of the Miss Ninja beauty pageant stood, shifting uncomfortably in their silk, satin, and tulle. The gymnasium - where the stage had been constructed overnight and chairs had been unfolded and set out earlier that day - might well have been over a hundred degrees, between the heat from those spotlights and the body temperatures of rows upon rows of parents and friends who had turned out to support the lovely ladies in their attempt to win tickets to the local filming of Ninja Warrior.

The winner of the pageant was about to be announced, and though he hadn't thought of it until that moment, Miles Edgeworth (in his third year of high school) found it more than a little strange that a group of twenty girls dressed in their finest, heavily painted with make-up, and walking around with exaggerated shaking of their hips would be competing for tickets to see a bunch of sweaty men (and that one transsexual woman) attempt to perform nearly impossible feats of agility and inevitably fall and break their faces or crack their… well. Miles thought it was quite strange that these "ladies" wanted so badly to see that filming.

But, he supposed he couldn't really think too much of it. After all, he was a near-rabid fan when it came to Ninja Warrior, and he desperately wanted those tickets, too. So much so that he would do anything to get them, in fact.

_Well, maybe not anything_. He wouldn't kill for them, after all.

But dressing in drag… that was another story.

When the idea first struck him, he quickly shrugged it off. Dressing in drag and entering a beauty competition just to win tickets to Ninja Warrior was by and large the stupidest thing he had ever even remotely considered in his life, and he would have none of that insanity. But the deadline for entering the contest loomed ever nearer, and somehow, for some reason he would never quite completely fathom, Miles found himself signing up on the second-to-last day, scribbling quickly the name "Milly Hunter" on the list of pageant contestants.

He had been trying to come up with a good alias for a few days prior.

When he signed up, he never considered how utterly nerve-wracking it was going to be, passing for female for the contest, but taking note that there was no swimsuit competition - _probably because these were underage girls? -_- he thought perhaps he just might be able to make it.

And so it was that he stood on the stage amidst the lights and the nineteen fellow contestants, listening to the crowd coughing and moving around in the heat, wishing the judges would hurry and make their decision so he could do something about the corset choking half the breath out of his lungs and the tape that he could feel chafing welts into his skin.

He really had gone all out for this masquerade. With the corset and the tape combined, he had managed to fake enough cleavage to get by, although it wasn't easy and _why hadn't he used the cloth bandage underneath that tape like he'd read about? _He procured a dress that was really quite beautiful - magenta, a color he always favored, and floor-length, even though he almost hated to hide the fact that he had gone to the trouble to shave his legs for this occasion. The gown fit snugly around his chest, showed off just enough of that cleavage he'd worked so hard to achieve, and stayed in place with the assistance of two very thin, stringy straps over his otherwise bare shoulders. From the waist down, the dress was free form, and so he had no need to worry himself with the fact that he had the hips of a teenaged boy.

He couldn't get the hang of walking in heels no matter how hard he tried, so at the last minute he bought a pair of clear, flat sandals and used those instead. His makeup he had left to his younger sister, Franziska, who had taken an almost twisted delight in making her brother look like a girl as he sat glaring at her from beneath puffs of powdery blush. When the long process was finished, however, he had found his own reflection quite feminine, and scowled to hide the fact that he was pleased with the results.

His hair was too short, Franziska had noted as he examined himself in the mirror, and he agreed; she ran off, only to return nearly an hour later with a waist-length wig in roughly the same shade as his own hair. He fought with it until he had it perched on his head just exactly the way he wanted it, and Franziska had then given him a catty smile and told him he looked better than ever like this.

Biting his lip on stage and hoping his makeup wouldn't melt before those judges figured something out, Miles fully doubted the sanity of his little sister.

And of himself.

And he sincerely hoped that his father wasn't watching this from beyond the grave.

With a shout that stirred the half-asleep crowd, the master of ceremonies hopped back up onto the stage to announce the winner of the competition, and Miles stiffened. What if he won? _Would the judges find out about this charade? Would the parents of the real girls find out?_ What if he had to go up there and accept those tickets? _What if _Manfred_ somehow found out about this?_ Would the joy of seeing Ninja Warrior live and in person drown out the ridicule he would surely receive?

And what if he didn't win? Then what? But there was no time to entertain that possibility, not when the MC was announcing that the winner was -

"Sherry Cooke!"

Miles stared at the girl as she trotted up to receive her tickets and a large bouquet of roses. She was a redhead - _of course_ - with large breasts for her age - _of course_ - and full, pouty lips. She waved the tickets over her head and said, "Me and my BFF are gonna have such a blast at this ninja thing," and that was the final straw. Before he could even think about what he was doing, Miles grabbed the big green bow on the back of the girl's dress and yanked as hard as he could, ripping it from the fabric of the dress itself.

"What are you doing?" the girl turned and said. "This was an expensive dress!"

"You don't even know what the tickets are for!" Miles retorted. "And you can't even speak with proper grammar!"

"What?" Sherry Cooke fumed, and the MC and the other contestants backed away, their eyes gleaming with the promise of a catfight. "What are you talking about? This wasn't about the tickets! It was about being the best looking!"

Miles let out a sound like something between a grunt of frustration and a shout of disappointment, ripped the bow he was still clutching in half, and shoved the pieces at Sherry. She flinched in preparation for more of an assault, but Miles had already bolted down the steps to the stage and hurried past the rows of too-curious onlookers to escape to the freedom outside the gymnasium.

The late afternoon sun was hardly a relief from the swelter inside the gym; Miles ducked into a tight little alleyway next to the high school to find some shade and privacy. There, he sank down against a wall and rested his forehead against his knees. He had never been so humiliated by his own actions in his life.

He stayed that way for a long while until a voice startled him out of his thoughts.

"Are you crying?"

He turned a glare on the owner of that voice and was both surprised and not surprised at all to find Phoenix Wright standing next to him, peering down at him with all the interest of a child on a first trip to the zoo.

Miles frowned deeply. "I don't cry. Go away."

"Everyone cries," said Phoenix, and he slid down against the wall to sit next to Miles.

Miles said "ugh" in response.

Phoenix stretched his legs out. "I sure wasn't expecting you to be 'Milly Hunter,' you know it?"

"Go away."

"I mean, I knew you liked Ninja Warrior a whole lot, but-"

"Go. Away."

"-but I never expected you to look that great in a dress."

Miles glanced sidelong at his friend - _he was a friend, after all; might as well let him have his say, yes? - _and searched his face for some hint of a joke.

"I mean it," said Phoenix, and he grinned in that lopsided way that Miles always took note of.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You really wanted to win that contest, huh?"

Miles sighed and stared at his feet, still clad in those clear sandals. "I thought you said you knew I liked Ninja Warrior."

"Well, yeah, but that girl who won said it was more about being the best looking than about the tickets."

"Yes, but… that wasn't… correct," Miles faltered.

Phoenix scooted a little closer. Miles pretended not to notice, but Phoenix leaned in to whisper right next to his ear, "I think you were the most beautiful girl on that stage."

Miles felt his face and ears flush and wished he could do more to control that involuntary reaction to his friend's words. He glanced back at Phoenix, who was still smiling, and then hurriedly looked away again, unwilling to acknowledge what he might have caught in those blue eyes that gazed back at him. He hugged his knees to his chest as well as he could with the corset still tightly bound over his torso. Phoenix slipped an arm around him, and Miles jumped at the touch against his bare back before settling in against the other boy, forgetting, for just a moment, to be bothered by any of this.


End file.
